The Connect the Dots Club
An invitation to an experiment in collective reflection.
I’m tired of shouting into the void. I think a better way is possible. It involves converting multiple monologues into true dialog.
I am lucky to be part of many groups that have incorporated circle process into our conversations and I love the unexpected and transformative products of those lively opportunities to connect whole-human-to-whole-human. In circle, people are free to show up as fully human, warts and all, and as a result we consistently see the cosmic irony — that vulnerability makes us strong; that admitting our limitations allows us to overcome them; that contradictory things can simultaneously be true.
Are interactions like this limited to face-to-face (or Zoom-to-Zoom) encounters? Can we find a way to blend the best of the circle process with the added depth that happens when we take the time to write out and organize our thoughts?
Let’s find out!
I want to set up an experiment and I want you to be part of it. We’ll attempt to create an online “Navigation Circle.” Here’s how it works. I will get the ball rolling by offering my own reflections on the tensions I’m currently feeling and hearing in the people around me. Then I’ll offer up what I think some of the drivers are and any provisional “so what’s” that might pop-up. At the end, I’ll offer a few specific questions as prompts for others to take up (or not) — basically the questions I’m left asking myself.
Then, it’s up to you to respond and more or less do the same.
- What are you noticing?
- What does it bring up for you?
- What do you think is really going on here — under the surface?
- And what’s your “so, what?”
One of the beauties of Medium is that we can easily connect posts through a Medium publication. I’ve created The Lifeboat Network publication to give us a place to share our collective reflections. Follow the same format: what are the tensions you’re noticing, what drivers do the tensions point to and what’s your “so, what?” with any lingering questions that might keep the conversation going. Then simply submit it to the Lifeboat Network (and tag your posts with #navigatingtensions).
(If you don’t currently have a Medium account, anyone can start one for free by following this link.)
So, to get the ball rolling…
Like most people, I grew up in a dysfunctional household. My father had a drinking problem that defined our family dynamics for decades. It was an open secret in the family — the elephant in the room — the thing we carefully concealed from ourselves and everyone else. Daily life was shaped by nearly constant conflict, full of blame, shame, hurt, frustration, and hopelessness. We were the definition of Einsteinian insanity — going thru the same pointless arguments; plastering over the pain with anger. Emotional trench warfare.
I feel like that same dynamic is playing itself out on the global stage. Here we are, our addiction to consumption, fossil fuels, and our own sense of entitlement the elephant that no one is willing to address. Instead, we find ourselves in endless, pointless debates and attacks. We waste our time trying to figure out who’s to blame rather than figuring out what changes we need to make in our own lives to move beyond it.
When I was in my mid-thirties, my brother suggested that we do an intervention. By this time, my father’s drinking was so well established that his health was clearly impacted. I had given up hope of anything ever changing and instead was preparing myself for the phone call I knew in my heart was coming sooner rather than later. I had no faith that the intervention would work. Frankly, I was going thru the motions as a way of absolving my lingering guilt. Participating meant that I had done everything I could be expected to do. After that, my hands were clean.
First, we met with the therapist without my father. She explained the process: we would each write a letter to my father asking him to seek treatment, we would bring him to the intervention and each of us would read our letters, and if my father agreed, he would go directly into rehab. “It will take about 30 minutes” she said. I remember laughing and saying something like “lady, I’m sure you’re good at your job, but you haven’t met my father.”
But she was right. It took about 30 minutes, my dad went into treatment and has been sober ever since.
Of course, the real work happened before those 30 minutes together. My family was given the assignment to write our intervention letters. The form was simple: 1) I love you and want you to be well and healthy. 2) This is how it affects me when you drink. 3) I want you to go into treatment and 4) if you don’t, to protect myself, here are the boundaries I need to set. We were told to write the letter from a place and love and care for my father. These weren’t grievance letters. It was about rehashing old wounds or settling old scores.
We went home and wrote our letters and came together again without my father to read thru our letters. That’s when the hard part started, because try as we did, our letters were peppered with barbs. It was hard for the old wounds not to ooze into them, sure to trigger all the same old defenses. Slowly together we cleaned the crap out and by the time we came back together with my father, our letters reflected our love, pain and hope in ways that my father could hear.
For me, over three decades of the same old battles, of good guys and bad guys, victims and offenders — a mountain of pain that felt permanent and as immovable as the Rockies melted away in 30 minutes. I saw that my father had been suffering in isolation for years, wanting the same thing for himself that we all wanted. But none of us could hear the others, trapped as we were in our own hurt and shame.
As below, so above. As a social psychologist, I work on the assumption that human collectives have their own psychology in the same we as individuals do. So, are we trapped in the same global family dynamic? Is our polarization simply anger masking pain? Fear dressed up with bravado?
So, what would an intervention letter to global consumerism say? How do we talk to all our loved ones who are trapped in the delusion of “business as usual” and retail therapy? What would your letter say? Who would you write to? And what boundaries are you willing to set for yourself if the addict chooses not to go into treatment? What barbs and old wounds do you need to address first before you can speak in a way others can hear?
I look forward to your responses. What comes up for you? What do those responses point to and what’s your “so, what?” Remember to submit your posts to the Lifeboat Network publication (and tag your posts with #navigatingtensions).
Let’s keep the conversation going.
